If you can suggest how to get around those limitations and create a bootable backup, i.e. installer, disc you'll have a double-fistful of admirers.
Ask and Ye Shall Receive!
You have to get the recovery partition to mount. 10.7 hides it. Red commands in terminal:
diskutil list
/dev/disk0 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *250.1 GB disk0 1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1 2: Apple_HFS Spare Mac HD 249.7 GB disk0s2 /dev/disk1 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER 0: GUID_partition_scheme *750.2 GB disk1 1: EFI 209.7 MB disk1s1 2: Apple_HFS Main Mac HD 749.3 GB disk1s2 3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk1s3
This computer has two hard drives, making it a good example. The recovery partition is on disk1, partition 3.
sudo mkdir /Volumes/Recovery
sudo mount_hfs /dev/disk1s3 /Volumes/Recovery
and the recovery partition will magically appear on your desktop. (disk utility will still refuse to acknowledge it but that's ok)
Open the Recovery HD on the desktop and see BaseSystem.dmg. Drop that to the lower left in disk utility. Burn it to a DVD or restore it to a hard drive partition at your leisure.
Restores nicely to a flash drive, but it's a smidge too big to fit on an 8gb, there's one or two irrelevent files I deleted here to squeeze it on. 16's work fine.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department
